


nothing between the white fire of the stars

by marrowsmarrow



Category: The Silmarillion, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, angbang, dark lords in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 14:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2431835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrowsmarrow/pseuds/marrowsmarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern Angbang AU. Mairon is a glassblower. Melkor is…Melkor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing between the white fire of the stars

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks to wimey on tumblr, who drew the art that inspired this (link below). And to melkorwashere, also on tumblr, who was the first to unwittingly romance me with Angbang. Middle fingers, most lovingly, to everyone in this community who’s poisoned me with this ship. This is my first contribution & it’s all your fault. But I am not sorry, for in Angband there are no regrets. Only death & angsty dark lords.
> 
> Also, I swear to the great fsm that glory hole is a for-real bona fide term in glassblowing. I’m not making this up (though a shit-ton of everything else is made up; glassblowers attend, if you feel the need, & call me out please, or just call me terrible. Your choice.)
> 
> Art inspiration: http://wimey.tumblr.com/post/99499535867/i-really-cant-draw-two-people-in-the-same-pic-im
> 
> Title is teased out from Mary Oliver’s poem, “Sleeping in the Forest.”

nothing between the white fire of the stars

===========================

His eyes are weapons. Honed ice that guts Mairon deep and he can’t move. He wonders if maybe those eyes are snares more than knives; blue crevasses, traps. Must be, because when Melkor returns home late at night, hair wet from the rain, sleeves pushed up, the shoulders of his work shirt soaked, the dark of hair and the blur of rain muting his gaze, Mairon feels himself slide. Closer. Ice and earth tilt. There is no arguing with Melkor’s gravity.

But oh, Mairon argues. He fights.

It’s always been like this. Ever since that day in the workshop when Melkor had sauntered in uninvited. His jaw rimmed in the red of glass pulling and warping with heat. Mairon had seriously considered ramming the blazing tip of his blowpipe into that boldly stupidly absurdly handsome face.

No, wait. It hadn’t been a consideration. He  _had_  swept the pipe at the man’s face. The satisfaction of jabbing a pipe leaden with blooming glass at its end toward a face of such surliness was still bright in his mind. And failing to hit his target was still bitter. Melkor had ducked, or he’d missed, and then the man had gone.

The second time Melkor had visited, Carcharoth had been sprawled in the corner, long flanks rising, falling, like huge and slow bellows as the wolfmutt slept. Melkor had stood across from Mairon as the glassblower breathed life into the gather at the end of the pipe, growing a skein of glass-over-glass as he fed it air. The man across from him shimmered in the heat, eyes like stolen fragments from a hard, sun sharpened winter sky. A god of dog days and hypothermic nights. Mairon had pulled the pipe from his mouth, lingering his tongue on its rim, then thrust it into the re-kindling warmth of the glory hole and told Carcharoth _attack._  Melkor, who had suddenly taken to looking distraught and eager at the sight of Mairon’s tongue, found himself being mauled with tooth and slabbed muscle and claw by an excitable and deadly canine.

There had been other times when Melkor had pulled and Mairon pulled back. Grocery shopping, of course; that was always a challenge: Mairon made itemized, color-coded, and chronologically-ordered shopping lists that correlated to perfectly nutrionally-balanced meals and spent hours picking through the local farmers’ markets and specialty food stores for his fodder. Melkor, on the other hand, menaced his way through the closest grocery store, piling his cart high with whatever he pleased. Toothbrushes were also a problem, as Melkor refused to use his own, and Mairon refused to use a toothbrush that had been in someone else’s mouth. This meant they went through three, four toothbrushes a day, and that Mairon always brushed his teeth first.

Their conflicts were toxic, were intoxicating, but this was  _their_ game and Mairon would have it no other way. Except for tonight.

Tonight, Mairon is tired, and when Melkor comes home from work, smirking and grabbing his wrists and pushing him against the kitchen counter, Mairon only frowns, and sighs, and then, well. And then Melkor-the-brute, Melkor-the-unfortunate-love-of-his-life, is kissing him. So he aligns his callused and heat-scarred hands along Melkor’s warm and heavy jaw, and kisses him back.


End file.
